Relocated sobering center set to open in Seattle’s SODO neighborhood by end of year
King County is moving the sobering center to a permanent location in Seattle’s SODO neighborhood at the site of a former nightclub.
by Joel Moreno
Updated Thu, April 10th 2025 at 2:59 PM
SEATTLE — King County’s sobering center will be moving to a new home, and preparations have begun to open the permanent facility where people who are living on the streets can find a safe, supportive place when they are too intoxicated to take care of themselves.
The sobering center will be relocated to 1950 1st Ave S in Seattle’s SODO neighborhood. The building is currently being remodeled, but the work should wrap up to begin operations by the end of the year.
Pioneer Human Services will run the facility and expects to serve as many as 40 people at a time.
“This new sobering center is critical to King County’s ongoing work to connect more people to treatment, lifesaving interventions, and a path to recovery,” King County Executive Shannon Braddock said in a press release. “Together, with community members, partners, and regional leaders, we are expanding access to substance use disorder treatment and creating a safe place for people to go for support when they need it.”
Erin Goodman, the executive director of the SODO Business Improvement Area, worked with county officials to help address her membership’s concerns about having this facility in the neighborhood.
“They are concerned about what the impact is going to bring, what is the potential for changing the environment around their business,” Goodman said. “It remains to be seen how it will actually work but some of the neighboring businesses are feeling much more positive, based on the responses they’ve received from the county’s team.”
The short-stay facility will offer immediate shelter and treatment to people who are homeless, under the influence, and at risk of getting hurt if they remain on the streets.
People can be driven to the facility by King County’s Emergency Service Patrol.
Offers of a warm bed and a helping hand have been instrumental in saving lives, as the sobering center gives people time to sleep off their stupor under medical observation.
Once they have a chance to regain their faculties, people will be offered services like referrals for drug treatment and housing assistance.
The average stay is about eight hours, which raised questions among surrounding businesses about whether the homeless will remain in the neighborhood afterward.
A county spokesperson said transport is available from the ESP to take people out of SODO to their next location so long as it is within the service area of the downtown core. ESP can also connect people to public transportation if they are trying to travel beyond the service area.
The sobering center has been operating out of the Yesler Building up until now, and assisted more than 1,000 people last year. Before that, the program was run out of a building in South Lake Union for about two decades but closed in 2019 when the property was sold.
In the interim when there was no sobering center, homeless people sometimes had to be dropped of at hospital emergency rooms if they were under the influence and not allowed to enter local shelters.
The new SODO location has had a troubled past. Last year, it housed an illegally operating nightclub, where a 22-year-old man was shot and killed during one of the parties inside.
“There’s been really negative activity in that building for the last year that’s been really erratic and damaging,” Goodman said. “So the idea of it being something where there is someone you can call when there’s a problem, with an entity that has said ‘We want to work with you,’ has to be reassuring.”
Neighboring businesses worked with county officials to address any potential safety concerns once the sobering center opens. One request was to have staff monitor the outside of the building where people come in, which the county plans to do. Pioneer Human Services personnel who will be working at the site also have training in de-escalation techniques, as an added safety measure.
The sobering center is one part of the county’s larger strategy to confront the opioid crisis. There is also a buprenorphine hotline that issues prescriptions for medications to treat opioid use disorder. Mobile teams that help people experiencing a mental health, drug, or alcohol crisis have been expanded, and a post-overdose recovery center is in the works to open later this year.